Buildings Fraught with Meaning: An Introduction to a Special Issue on Synagogue Architecture in Context

Abstract

It has frequently been observed that synagogue buildings have long fulfilled three related but somewhat different functions, as reflected in the three Hebrew terms used to designate these buildings. The synagogue customarily has been called a beit knesset, a house of assembly; a beit tefilah, a house of prayer; and also a beit midrash, a house of study.1 However, there is yet another function of a synagogue building at least as significant as the three usually enumerated, for a synagogue is also a mivneh simli, a symbolic structure fraught with meaning. That is, a synagogue building often acts as a concrete representation of the character and condition of the Jewish community it serves. It can and often does reveal not only who the Jews who make use of it are and how they behave, but also what they think and what they believe. As one synagogue architect put it recently, architecture speaks. It expresses what we value from the past, what our needs are now, and, at its best moments, looks to the future.2 As much as synagogue buildings provide venues for worship, study, and assembly, they also reflect the circumstances and the mentalite of those who build and use them.